The leader of a Pakistani militant group whose suicide bombings killed more than 250 people died on Thursday of injuries from a US drone strike in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militants said.

Omar Khalid Khorasani’s death comes ahead of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit and is likely to help ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and hide over the border in Afghanistan.

Khorasani’s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, is one of dozens of armed Islamist factions – including al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban – operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But JuA has been particularly deadly in Pakistan, claiming responsibility for eight major attacks in two years. Read More…